Second chance at life?
by ChibiChump13
Summary: This story is about Cross and Allen and the many adventures they have both good and bad while Allen is Cross's apprentice.


**Hey guys, this is my first man fanfic. I have a running Fullmetal Alchemist Fic which is doing pretty well. I just wanted to write a story about Cross and Allen because there are not many out there. I know that Cross is not seen as a parental figure but I think that he can be seen a little like a mentor. Ah well, I hope you guys enjoy this! **

**Chapter One**

_Would you stop cowering?_

Cross walked into the graveyard. He had heard the commotion and he knew that the Earl must have been here. What he did not expect to see when he arrived was a boy with an innocence. Apparently it was an innocence that he could not control. The manifestation of the child's innocence was in the form of a giant hand. The akuma that the boy was fighting Cross assumed was the child's father.

Something else caught his eye. The child had been cursed by the akuma and lived. The bleeding scar on the boy's face was proof of it. What also startled Cross was the boy's eye. The colors looked like they had been switched.

At the sight of Cross, The Earl had fled back into the night sky on his umbrella. Cross still could not believe what he had witnessed. The boy could not have been any older than seven. The child was unconscious and slumped over the gravestone of his father. The akuma had been destroyed long ago.

Cross took this as his cue to approach the unconscious child. The shock of the incident had turned the poor child's hair white. It looked odd for such a small child to have white hair. Cross then kneeled next to the child and checked to see if he really was living. Pushing the child's hair back, he examined the deep cuts that were on the child's face. The kid was going to be scarred for life.

"Well kid, looks like I'm stuck having to take care of you…" Cross mumbled as he lifted the kid up and began to walk back to his hotel room.

'_Well I'm always being nagged that I need to take on an apprentice. Well I know that he's a parasitic type, you don't find too many of those.'_

Cross walked into the hotel room and placed the kid on the beat up couch that was in the room. After cleaning off the boy's eye and bandaging it, Cross decided that he needed a drink.

Cross woke up the next morning to a loud thump coming from the other side of the room. Cross looked up to see a very scared boy back up against the far wall. His eyes were darting back and forth as he tried to get as far away from Cross as possible.

'_Why the hell is he so afraid? He better not be a pansy...' _Cross mused as he got off of the bed.

When Cross tried to walk towards the boy the kid just shrunk back trying to seep through the wall. "Aw hell, would you calm down! I'm not going to frickin hurt you!" Cross mumbled. He really didn't care enough to coddle the boy.

The boy then began to shake violently and he closed his eyes trying to protect himself from whatever he thought Cross was going to do to him. "Please….sir please….don't…." was all that the boy whispered as he shielded himself.

"What? What the hell do you think I brought you here for kid?" Cross then thought about it and a sick realization came to his head, someone had hurt him before. He didn't know the extent but he knew that the child had been hurt.

"Listen, to me kid. I'm not going to hurt you, and I'm not going to coddle you either. The reason why you are here is because I am giving you a second chance at life. Yeah, I saw what happened last night," the boy shuddered as he recalled what happened as well. Tears started to fall down his cheeks silently. "You are going to be my apprentice kid. You have a gift and I'm going to show you how to use it."

Cross then kneeled down in front of the broken child and took him by the chin firmly, earning a whimper from the child. That was when Cross realized that the color of his eye had changed as well. He couldn't see what the cursed eye looked like because the bandage covered half of his face.

"Now let's get another thing straight. I don't care if you hate me, but I will hit you when you deserve it. I am not so cruel as to hurt a child when they didn't deserve it. Am I clear? I don't know what went on in your past and I don't care. You got that?" Cross asked.

The kid's eye was wide with fear but he took a gulp and he nodded.

"Good, now kid, get up. We have a busy day today." Cross ordered as he walked back to his bed.

_Now what to do, I know that I want to go to the whorehouse tonight to relax, but crap now I'm stuck with this idiot. _

Cross then realized, how old was the boy? How should he know what to expect the child to do if he didn't know the kid's age?

"Boy! Come over here!" Cross screamed. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the boy jump and flinch. He then scurried to stand near Cross, but still at a distance.

"Boy I-" Cross started to say but he was interrupted by a small whisper from the child that he almost couldn't catch. "What was that?" Cross growled as he looked down at the kid.

"My name is Allen sir. I'm sorry, but that's my name…you don't have to use it…..but..." Allen said as he looked down at the floor. He was terrified that he even spoke to Cross.

Cross could see that Allen was shaking violently and biting his lip. "How old are you?" Cross asked, earning a confused look in his direction from Allen.

"I'm…I think I'm nine sir…." Allen said as he turned deep red.

"How the hell could you not know your own age?" Cross then picked Allen up by the back of his coat and lifted the kid in front of him with one arm. _'Damn this kid is light…' _

Allen let out a scared gasp as he was lifted. He started to shake violently again. "Are you trying to be smart with me boy? How could you be nine? You look like you are seven!" Cross growled earning even more shaking from Allen.

"No sir….I promise… I swear I really don't know….Mana…he said he thought I was five when he found me….I swear please sir…I'm sorry…Please…" Allen begged as he trembled some more.

_This kid thinks that I'm really going to hurt him…_

"What do you mean by _found_ you, kid?" Cross didn't understand. Who the hell was Mana?

"Sir…Mana, my dad…he adopted me after…after he found me on the street sir…Nobody wanted me…but he saved me…" Allen then gave a deep sigh as he tried to hold back some of his tears.

So that's why the kid had so much fear in him. He lived on the streets for the majority of his short life. Who knows what could have happened to him.

"Kid, you stink." Cross stated before he carried the kid into the bathroom and started to draw water for the bath. He placed Allen down on the floor and started to pull at them bottom of the kid's shirt to get it off.

"Please…n-no...don't sir.." Allen pleaded as he fought with Cross.

"Look kid I'm not going to- aargh! Forget it! Do it yourself!" Cross screamed before he fled the bathroom. "And hurry up, you better not use all the hot water or I'll throttle you!"

This was going to be a lot of work….

Allen got out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later wearing the same clothes that he had before.

"We'll have to see about getting you something else to wear kid." Cross grumbled. "Now I want you to clean up this room do you understand me?" Allen nodded. "Good, I'm going to take my bath now. Don't screw up! I want every inch of this place dusted!"

Cross then slammed the bathroom door so that he could draw water for the bath. Cross noticed that the water in the tub was still draining from when Allen used it. Cross thought it was odd that there wasn't any steam in the room, so he checked the temperature of the water. He was surprised to find that it was frigid. "The hell!"

Why on Earth would the kid take a bath in that? Then Cross remembered what he had said before, "_You better not use all the hot water or I'll throttle you!" _

Geez, the kid really did take his words to heart. He liked that the kid was obeying him but this was over the top. The way this was going, the kid was going to get himself sick and Cross _could not _have that happening. There was no way that Cross was going to tend to a sick child.

'_How the hell am I going to straighten him out, I can't be too soft but this idiot is too traumatized.' _ Cross slumped out of the shower and started to get dressed. From the other side of the door he swore he could here something creaking.

'_What the hell?'_ Cross opened the door to find Allen with a dust rag swinging from the small chandelier on the ceiling. He had his legs around the metal and he was swinging like a trapeze artist dusting the ceiling off.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING BRAT? ARE YOU TRYING TO GET YOURSELF KILLED?" Cross screamed as he rushed to the center of the room. Allen looked terrified but then he just smiled.

"THE HELL ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?" Cross screamed looking up at the boy.

"You thought I was going to hurt myself?" Allen mused.

"YES! Get. Down. Now." Cross growled even more. Allen then dropped and flipped, sticking a perfect landing. "The hell were you doing boy? What are you a damn monkey?" Cross still didn't understand this kid.

"No sir…I used to live in the circus sir…that was easy stuff sir…" Allen then looked to his shoes as he shifted uneasily.

Cross sighed. At least Allen wasn't freaking out this time.

"I need a drink." Cross grumbled as he sat on his bed.

**Hey guys! Well I hoped you liked the first chapter! Please subscribe to my alerts so that you can get the next chapter! Also please I need reviews telling me if I got a good beginning or not.**

**Please review! Thanks for reading! Until next time! =]**


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